Dream Work as the Alchemical Process of “Separatio”

Saturday, May 10, 2025
10:00 am – 3:00 pm EST
a Zoom seminar led by
Michael Conforti, PhD

Contact hours:  4 CE contact hours for Licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists for this program.

“All projections are unconscious identifications with the object…From this enchainment he had to free the soul by means of the separation …” (C.G. Jung, Collected Works, Vol 14)

Dreams reveal the true nature and meaning of our life.  With the clarity of the new dawn, we may suddenly realize that we have found a way of life that brings us into relationship with our soul.  So too, the dream informs us that if we continue with the life we are living, we may end up alone, chasing mere illusions of a real life.

These messages are often carried by the figures in our dreams.  While we may know and trust the intentions of these figures, our perceptions are often colored by projections. At times those who truly love us are presented as betrayers, and those who have betrayed us are seen as protectors.  Such is the workings of complexes and projections, and represents one of the greatest challenges in dream work.

Mythology, fairy tales and sacred literature speak of this Janus-faced nature of Psyche and symbolism.  Cain and Abel, God and the Devil, shapeshifters, and the Doppelgänger are all examples of this dual and often contradictory nature of human experience. In Jewish theology we find the “Dybbuk,” “who speaks out of the person’s mouth in a different voice, (seeking) to mask its true identity so it can remain unidentified and evade expulsion. The goal then, is to first identify the ghost and engage it in dialogue.”  This is an absolutely perfect description of the needed discernment in working with complexes and archetypes in our dreams, where it is difficult to distinguish between the voice of The Self and benevolence and the malevolent complex. Much like the working of vampires, it is under the cover of darkness (unconsciousness) that such complexes create havoc and suffering in our life.

In dream work, this discernment involves a process the alchemists referred to as the “Separatio,” whereby we “learn to discern between the parts of oneself that serve a higher purpose versus those that hinder spiritual growth … (which) is possible only if the delusory projections that veil the reality of things can be withdrawn.”

Michael Conforti, PhD, is a Jungian analyst and the Founder and Director of the Assisi Institute. He is a faculty member at the C.G. Jung Institute – Boston and the C.G Jung Foundation of New York.  A pioneer in the field of matter-psyche studies, Dr. Conforti is actively investigating the workings of archetypal fields and the relationship between Jungian psychology and the New Sciences. He has presented his work at The C.G. Jung Institute - Zurich and Jungian organizations in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Indonesia, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, and Venezuela. He is the author of Threshold Experiences: The Archetype of Beginnings and Field, Form and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature & Psyche, which have been translated into Italian, Russian and Spanish.

Contact hours: Four CE contact hours for Licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists for this program.

The C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc. is recognized by New York State Education Department’s State Board of Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0350.

The C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts. #P-0015.

C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists, #CAT-0068.

This is an online program via Zoom. This program will not be recorded.